Pleasure and the Visual Arts in Late Middle Ages and Renaissance Italy

NICOLÁS KWIATKOWSKI Y JOSÉ EMILIO BURUCÚA

Leeds

Congreso; International Medieval Congress; 2013

Leeds University

Our paper studies the experiences and theoretical efforts of Quattrocento Italian artists, which produced an unprecedented process of change regarding the assessment of the pleasure produced by images and the contemplation of paintings. It was not only the character attributed to that pleasure what changed, but also new types of enjoyment were discovered and formulated. The fruition derived from images was associated to the worlds of the senses, of practice, morals and the inmanent exaltation of the spirit. We will analyse texts and images by Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leonbattista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci and Giorgio Vasari, in order to show that the artists transformed the value of aesthetic pleasure, elevating the production and observation of images up to and beyond the level of those derived from texts.